A Rookie and a Veteran Prevail at Black Mountain

Barrett and Fuhr take top honors at SoCal Series event No. 6

Ryan Barrett made the most of his first XTERRA Trail Run, and Heather Fuhr made a successful return to XTERRA racing to highlight the XTERRA Black Mountain Trail Run on Sunday, April 10, at San Diego.

Barrett was the overall winner, completing the 15-kilometer trail course in 1 hour, 5 minutes, 3 seconds. That he topped a field of more than 250 runners was impressive enough. Making it more so, Barrett is 15 and was the youngest runner in the entire field.

"My school is on spring break, so I wanted to do a long run to stay in shape," said Barrett, who is a sophomore at Westview High in San Diego. "This was actually my first 15k (race). I run cross country and track for my high school, so the longest races are usually 5k."

Home-course knowledge played a role in Barrett's victory. He lives near Black Mountain Regional Park, and said he trains on those trails every weekend.

"This was my first time doing this race, but I'm actually on that trail all the time," he said. "I knew that there was a big hill at the end, and I don't think the guy in second (place) knew. He was close to me with about two miles to go, then I started to get ahead."

Steven Short of Aliso Viejo placed second in 1:05:54 - 51 seconds behind Barrett. John Winter-Nolte of San Diego was third in 1:08:33.

Fuhr, a former Ironman world champion, placed fourth overall and first among the females in 1:08:40. She won three XTERRA SoCal Trail Run races in 2009, and placed third at the 2009 XTERRA Trail Run World Championship. However, she did not enter any XTERRA events in 2010 due to scheduling conflicts.

"I was trying to focus on anyone ahead of me," she said of her strategy. "There were a few men that I
could see up ahead, but I never seemed to get any closer to them.  Even though I wasn't gaining any ground, they were great to pace off of."

She finished well ahead of the other women, as Gisele Schaaf placed second in 1:14:46, and Paula Newby-Fraser - another former Ironman triathlon superstar - placed third in 1:17:15.

Fuhr, 43, said she has recently started competing in ultramarathon races, but would like to add XTERRA Trail Run events to her schedule again, perhaps even the 2011 XTERRA Trail Run World Championship at Kualoa Ranch, Hawaii.

There was a mishap early in the race that affected the final standings. The first lead pack of runners - which did not include Barrett at the time - took a wrong turn on the course and had to eventually turn around after losing about 15 minutes.

JJ Timphony was one of those runners, and said he had to pass "almost the entire field of runners" after the wrong turn to eventually finish in seventh place overall. Timphony won the previous XTERRA SoCal race.

The XTERRA Black Mountain Trail Run was the sixth of seven races in the 2011 XTERRA SoCal Trail Run Series. The final event in the series is the XTERRA Malibu Creek Trail Run, scheduled for May 7 at Malibu/Calabasas, Calif.

For complete results and more information on the SoCal Series, please visit www.trailrace.com or www.xterratrailrun.com.

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